


The Toll of the Evening Bell

by MaximoBull



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Ritsuka Fujimaru is nonbinary, azrael is one of my favorite noble phantasms and i wanted to write about it, i was up too late last night and wrote this, more of an exploration of tone than anything, set during camelot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximoBull/pseuds/MaximoBull
Summary: The First Hassan is a force to be feared. Tristan of Camelot learns why. A short drabble written as an experiment with tone moreso than a full-fledged story.





	The Toll of the Evening Bell

“Young Master of Chaldea.” The deep and sonorous voice of the First Hassan jolted Ritsuka out of their panicked thoughts as the world burned around them. Tristan was still out there, pacing amid the rubble in search of the Master. “Prithee, Ritsuka Fujimaru, close thine eyes and avert thy face from me. I must now do the unspeakable for thy cause. Wilt thou permit the use of a Noble Phantasm?”

Ritsuka had no idea what was going on or why. All they could do was trust the first, most terrible of the Hassans. They nodded, and the First Hassan stroked their hair. His touch was disarmingly soft and gentle. But he had asked Ritsuka not to look at what was to come. They could hardly disobey their Servant’s request. Shutting their eyes, Ritsuka turned their face away, hoping to all that was good in the world that the First Hassan could defeat Tristan.

Once the First Hassan had confirmed his charge’s eyes were shut and their face turned away, he rose to full height.

“Tristan, Knight of the Round Table,” his voice boomed. Tristan, amid the rubble, turned, face as eerily dispassionate as ever.

“Another one of you Hassans,” he said dismissively, raising his harp. “Are you allied with the Master? Perhaps buying some time?” He shook his head. “How sad. Yet this is such a simple matter. All there is to do is cut you down…”

The First Hassan made no response to Tristan’s taunts. Instead, he unsheathed the greatsword at his side, and began walking forward. Tristan readied his harp and prepared to strum, eager to send invisible death screaming towards his foe.

But his fingers would not play.

“What…?”

The red-haired bowman felt ice flood his veins as the assassin approached him, steps unhurried. “Thou art a mere dealer of death, Sir Tristan,” the First Hassan said, voice low. “Thou bring'st the Reaper’s blade down ‘pon the manifold gentry with mocking tears. But thou know'st not what it means for a life to close.”

Tristan tried to move, to run, but all he could manage was a twitch of his toes. The First Hassan continued his walk, still speaking calmly and slowly. “All must die. But thou would'st slay indiscriminately, ending lives before their time.  
"Now the time has come for thine own life to end. Thou shalt hear the final song of thy pitiful existence.”  
He was right in front of Tristan now, the lights in his skull’s eye sockets smoldering like blue embers. “Hear, bowman, the evening bell. With the setting of the sun, it doth toll for thee.”  
The First Hassan lifted his jet black blade, and Tristan’s eyes snapped open.

_ **“Azrael.”** _

The sound of a lone bell tolled across the battlefield.  
When Ritsuka finally opened their eyes and looked at the scene of the battlefield, the First Hassan stood all alone, his blade planted into the ground in front of him.  
Sir Tristan of the Round Table was gone. All that remained was his harp, broken in twain.


End file.
